Manchester United Vs Arsenal: 4 Reasons Why Today Was Inevitable

Here’s my disclosure for today’s post: I didn’t go to the game today, I do not subscribe to a TVsports channel owned by Rupert Murdoch, I only listened to the game on the radio and followed certain twitter feeds, I shall not be matching MOTD2 tonight. I am still proud to be an Arsenal fan no matter how much it hurts…………..but today it bloody hurts!!!

Rather than go into the in’s and outs of a game that I thankfully did not have to view I put forward some reasons as to why the result today was inevitable and, in a painful way, might be the kick up the arse this club has gotten away with in recent time.

1. Arsene Wenger

Turn on the radio and listen to any post-match phone-in and you’ll hear both sides of the Arsene Wenger. No matter which side of the fence you sit there are some big areas of concern where Arsene seems to be shooting himself in the foot in his current approach to managing Arsenal.

Unwilling to recognize the teams weaknesses: Time and time again we hear about this team’s massive potential and mental strengthness, however, this has never actually turned into results. How many times in recent seasons have Arsenal struggled against the title challenging teams as well as against teams that should have been beaten easily. Yes, there may have been the odd victory against ManUre and Chelsea but for every one of those there has been a Wigan or a West Brom or a Newcastle or a Bolton. Teams that should have easily been beaten and would have been beaten by Premiership winning teams that have produced that mental strengthness every week to win games against the run of play.

Unwilling to recognise the failings himself: There was a story of the news the other day about a man who had been sentenced the other day for faking his army career having never served in the army at all. He had built up such a strong story to convince others that over the course of time he had convinced himself that the lie was in fact truth. I’m not suggesting that there’s anything untoward in Arsene Wenger’s head but the analogy does hit home and a small dose of humility in that a new course of action may be required with the current squad. If not delusional, then it would be more concerning that his approaching is complete arrogance and the current situation is entirely deliberate.

Poor morale within the squad: We’ve heard some concerning stories this week including one in which the club captain sat down with the manager to discuss areas in which the team need immediate improvement. No progress was be made and RvP was left completely perplexed in the ambitions that his manager has for the current season. A season it should be noted in which Robin’s contract should be renewed in order to avoid another Nasri situation. Furthermore, how much should we look into the non-signings of Phil Jones and Juan Mata. After lengthy discussions with both players we now found them playing for two of Arsenal’s main competitors but if money was not the issue then why would they have turned down the chance to play for Arsenal? See also the “reason” why Nasri and Cesc left, the latter moreso when he in fact took a paycut to join a Barcelona team that still have Xavi and Inesta in their pomp. It’s not money but winning ambition.

2. The Board

Why has the buying power of Arsenal dropped so dramatically? This has been touched earlier but how much does the current insecurity of the board impact deals? In the past year we have seen a boardroom tussle between Stan Kroenke and Alisher Usmanov with silent Stan apparently winning the battle. Yet, what difference have we seen from an outsiders perspective? By what measures is he deeming successful performance, and by this I mean in terms of investment purposes, because is the slide continues then unrest amongst the fanbase will ultimately result in left money in the coffers on a weekly basis. Surely success on the pitch equates to success on the balance sheet? At what point does Stan and the board intervene in either supporting the manager or not?

What role does Ivan Gazidis serve as Chief Executive? Whilst he was not a direct replacement for David Dein the comparisons in Arsenals emptiness of the trophy cabinet are reasonably tangible and when, in November 2008, Ivan Gazids was bought in to take on a similar role it looked like the rocking ship was being stabilized. In fact, for the MSL power-broker whose crown jewel was brokering the transfer of David Beckham to LA Galaxy. However, let us look at the signings made at Arsenal since the summer of 2008:

Of those, only 2 (3 if you include Sol Campbell) would automatically slot into your first team now – Gervinho and Thomas Vermaelen. Not much return for 4 years work is it.

3. The Players

The gaps between the players and the fans is becoming really evident now. It was only 2 years ago when the Arsenal team would join up in the centre circle straight after the final whilstle for a final team talk. OK, it all feel appart after that fateful game against Birmingham which Eduardo’s horrific injury and Gallas’ final minute tantrum. However, there was comararde within the team and with the fans. Nowadays, as soon as the whilstle is blown the players are straight down the tunnel without much recognition for the fans who pay the tickets that fund the wages. For a club of great history and demand for respect towards the paying crowd this needs reinstilling amongst the current crop of players. Fine, there are a minority that are still aware of need for a good rapport but the majoirty of players would be found guilty of not giving something back to the fans on matchdays.

Player Indiscipline: Three premier leagues games into the new season and we have had 3 red cards and 1 retrospective suspension. I haven’t seen the two yellow cards that Jenkinson received today so cannot comment (and never will) but for the other three suspensions that the team are having to suffer, they could have been avoid. Song was petulant, Gervinho needed self-constraint and Frimpong’s first yellow could easily have been avoided. The current Arsenal team need to be more savvy in the way they conduct themselves on the pitch to avoided such penalties because all they do is end up causing harm to the team by making themselves unavailable to play.

Inexeperienced Players: I said this previously in the Liverpool aftermath, you cannot expect players with little premier league experience to be able to complete with other teams that have built up collective experience of number of seasons. Add to that the mix of youth and it’s turned into a receipe for disaster. I have no doubt that given the right football schooling, some of these new recruits will go onto shine for seasons to come but right now it’s like lambs to the slaughter and is coming across as naive management. Whilst the youngsters should take a lot from the current experience, and (hopefully!!) be safe in the knowledge that it couldn’t get much worse, a club like Arsenal should not be in this position.

4. Other Teams

Other teams have strengthened and have strengthened early. ManUre made the majority of their signings at the beginning of the summer and entered their pre-season in the knowledge that their squad was pretty much complete. Liverpool started in January and have continued throughout the summer. Chelsea have been slow but this can be put down to Andre Villas-Boas coming in himself part way through the summer. However, year-on-year Arsenal either leave it very late to make a signing or do nothing at all. In fact, like the British railway system, Arsenal are now suffering from years of under investment whereas our competitiors having just gotten stronger. Have a look at the table of net spenders in the past decade. Arsenal are only trumped by Blackburn in the profit making stakes but the bigger area of concern is the net investment vs winning intent/desire of the club to be able to compete for the best players. Can you imagine what Arsene might have acheived if he’s kept hold of his most valubale assests and then spent some more money on imporving that squad!!!

Time and again we hear commentators saying that Arsene should be recongised for what he has acheived with the players that he has had. Fine, but there will not be a asterix next to Arsenal’s permier league standing in the footballing almanacs of 2068 stating *but fair play to Arsenal, they finished fourth but they had to deal with Chamakh up front and Eboue in midfield.

It’s results that count I’m afraid……..

So tonight’s post has been a little bit doom and gloom but reality hurts I’m afraid. Today has been a time for a little bit of humility and soul searching to find the truth of the matter. And if the truth hurts then so be it – anything that can make Arsenal stronger should be encouraged.

What reasons are there to be optimistic? There is a core of players in the squad that are willing to stand up and be counted. With the current club captain (Lord, let him stay fit) we have the right person to pick up the team and take them on to the next battle. If Jack Wilshere and Emmanuel Frimpong could be nominated for World Footballers of the Year on the merit of their twitter accounts then they would be battling amongst themselves to be on the podium:

There is a core of players that do share a desire and have true heart for this club that need to rub off on the others in order to this team to evolve and become stronger. If not, then I’m afraid they need to be shipped out.

Finally, and saving the best to the last, the best performance of the day would go to the away fans. It’s not the first time that Arsenal fans have done their best to urge on the team midst the face of adversity and woeful defending but the audible performance would have been heard around the world as 3,000 away fans out sang 73,000 ManUre supporters whilst they were 7-2 up. To hear “I’m Arsenal ’till I die” was heart warming on a cold day for all Gooners and the club should recongise this. And this is the point, this club is more than the players on the pitch, the state of the art stadium and the fancy merchandising and branding. It’s about the soul of what it means to be an Arsenal fan to enjoy the good times and regroup and be strong during the bad and kudos to those who made every Gooner proud to know what it takes to be a fan. The players who wanted to go off straight at the final whistle should take note.

Jack and Frimpong send their best!

*Jack seems to have deleted his posted so I’ve only got his retweet

So as this post comes to end we shall shortly see the transfer window close too. Will these 3 days define Arsene Wenger’s career? There’s only one person that can answer that, isn’t there Arsene…………